This work makes a valuable contribution to Marlowe studies because it is the first to consider closely the connection between sexual and religious conflicts in the plays, emphasizing psychological readings while also attending to historical matter and recent theoretical developments.

Engaging the theories of Heinz Kohut on the individual's struggle for "manliness" and personal wholeness, McAdam illustrates how two fundamental points of destabilization in Marlowe's life and work - his subversive treatment of Christian belief and his ambivalence toward his homosexuality - clarify the plays' interest in the struggle for self-authorization. The author posits a post-Freudian argument in favor of pre-Oedipal narcissistic pathology in Marlowe's plays, in contrast to Kuriyama's psychoanalytic study, Hammer or Anvil, which is Freudian in approach and concerned with Oedipal patterns.

The book argues for a dialectical pattern of psychological development.